Trudeau ducks chatting about trip to Aga Khan’s island

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won’t say whether he would testify at a special meeting of the House of Commons ethics committee about his controversial trip to the Aga Khan’s private island in the Bahamas.

But in a CBC Radio interview, Trudeau is largely dismissing the suggestion as an Opposition effort to score political points.

Ahead of a town hall meeting tonight in Halifax, Trudeau says that while he’s happy to work with the ethics commissioner on the issue, Canadians expect politics to be kept out of the debate.

The Conservatives are asking the ethics committee to summon Trudeau to testify about the December 2016 trip, which left taxpayers on the hook for more than $200,000.

Ethics commissioner Mary Dawson, whose tenure ended Monday, says Trudeau violated four different provisions of the Conflict of Interest Act when he and members of his family accepted the trip, which Dawson said could be seen as a gift designed to influence the prime minister.

A spokesperson for the prime minister has said Trudeau reimbursed the commercial equivalent of his and his family’s flights to and from Nassau.